Should your mechanic be present on the first post-maintenance flight?

On the two occasions I have asked the engineer to come in with me on the first flight he has agreed

If a post maintenance test fligh is required one of our certifying staff will do it unless the owner prohibits this.

It the old days when C of A test flights were required myself and another engineer always did them and could get the job done in just under an hours flying.

One flying syndicate decided that we were not going to joy fade around in their aircraft ( as they put it ) and they could do the flight themselfs. The two experts from the group turned up and an hour and a half later they returned with the aircraft to report that the landing gear had failed the Emegency extension check.

So it was up on the jacks for the aircraft and about an hour of looking for defects……….. Of which we could find none !
So back into the air, this time I was reluctantly allowed to fly with them to see the defect for myself. Once in the air the experts demonstrated the defect with the system to me and sure enough the nose leg failed to lock down. It was smug looks from those who had proved we had not done our jobs properly…………….. Until I pointed out that the emergency gear deployment was being carried out 20 KTS above the recommended speed in the flight manual.

So I order to stop us joy riding their aircraft it cost them an extra hour of flying time and two hours of labour carrying out an unnessesary re- inspection of the landing gear……………. Flying group politics is a wonderful thing !

Another owner who insisted he was in the aircraft as observer during the C of A air test became almost uncontrollable when I set the aircraft up for the spin recovery part of the air test, he insisted we land and when on the ground prohibited me from ever flying his aircraft and endangering him on the grounds that I was was not experienced enough to fly a type that was dangerous to spin, only when the CAA told him that " no spin test no C of A" did he finaly relent and reluctantly sent me off in his pride & joy to do the test.

Peter…….. Insurance not usualy a factor for licences engineers to perform test flights as standard insurance policy’s have this cover………as to my mechanics flying with owners…… That is dependent on the owner, I do have a duty of care to my employees and there are some people I would simply not let an employee fly with !

Nice post, A&C. You must have seen it all with ridiculous owners turning up, stamping their feet, stating you are not flying my toy……I prefer the mech going with me. It hopefully shows confidence in his work. After all he has just signed it off for you to go fly it, so he should, if required, or requested, go with you. My understanding is that not all post maintenance require a test flight. I have just renewed the ruddervators on the Bonanza, we await the rigging tool from the States to finish the job, but that will require a VNE dive, guess who will definitely accompany me on that one!!!!

I think it all boils down to the mutual trust and respect thing, that an owner should have with his chosen maintenance company. A request to the mech to fly the first post flight, should be met with a positive.

Now that could be a separate thread in its own right….

Beech Baby

There is an assumption with a certain type of person in the UK that the guy in the overalls that has just carried out the maintenance is some sort of lowlife with very little status or intelligence, it is hard to single people with this attitude out but most are from what they consider to be the professions and a high proportion seem to be lawyers, but it seems to be about protecting their perceived social status.

Unfortunatly for them things don’t work quite like that in aviation and the more astute realize that.

I once saw some guys turn up at Booker in a Cessna 172 and start giving the guy working the fuel pumps a hard time and treating him like an servant while admiring the Spitfire parked along side. After uncomplainingly fueling the 172 the guy climbed in to the Spitfire and taxied away to go do an airtest………………. The look on the faces of the guys flying the 172 was priceless !

I also know of an airfield fire crew who run a book on the next resident pilot to kill themselfs, these guys are not pilots but their observation of human behavior has proven to be unnervingly accurate. The book was started to protect the young people on work experience programs at the airfield from those pilots who they deemed unwise to fly with.

The mechanic who does my annual permit revalidations always does a post maintenance check flight.

Around here it is very common that the mechanics either do the test flight themselves (if they are rated and current on type) or come along. I have never had one who refused to fly on the test flight.

Yesterday we finished several months work on my 65 HP ‘puddle jumper’ and my A&P friend and I flew it for an hour… He taught me how to fly in it 12 years or so ago, after fixing stuff to make that possible, so flying together after maintenance is a well established pattern with us.

I was terribly rusty having been flying a higher powered nose wheel aircraft for a while, so we did some stalls and ‘almost’ spin entries, lazy 8s, and touch and goes. Simple stuff. The plane flew fine except for him noticing that it was spitting a tiny bit of oil on the windscreen. It always does that after the propeller is reinstalled, with the tapered hub newly greased.

I noticed an aircraft get airborne the other day on it’s first flight after engine overhaul. It turned downwind, declared a PAN, upgraded to MAYDAY on base leg and conducted a pretty reasonable engine-off landing.

DP – I witnessed a very similar event, although I heard it was the third flight after the engine overhaul/installation. From what we saw, it was pretty slow on the last bit of final with a stiff wind blowing…. I saw it subsequently start up and taxi back under its own steam so it’ll be interesting to hear what the cause was in due course.

Personally, I have carried out many first flights on ‘new’ engines (and other air tests, although these are rarely required or justified, especially since the demise of the CofA renewal air test), if nothing else to ensure the initial break-in procedure is followed. Trying to convince owners to fly their new engine in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations can be hard work as they are a tad psyched up. Sometimes (quite often, actually) owners are less experienced than the engineers when it comes to flying. Indeed, I heard the pilot involved the other day was one of the owner’s sons – perhaps using more experienced (qualified) engineers or instructors etc might be a better idea.

I was responsible for the maintenance on an Archer. When the engine overhauled, I gave the owners a chat (in my own time) about how to look after their ‘new’ engine. In the end they flew it two crew as it was climbing and flying so incredibly fast they were concerned about navigation, infringements etc. In an Archer. Oh, and because I said the first two hours should be at 75% power (plus a bit either side) they said they’d flown around the carb heat on to slow it down…..

Sadly, it is true that many owners/operators/pilots look down on engineers. I think that many would be surprised just how many of us fly.

I wouldn’t have a problem flying any aircraft post maintenance that I myself have performed maintenance on or been responsible for. Whether or not I would get in the aircraft with an owner/operator/pilot at the controls that I didn’t know and trust, is a very different matter….